Bill Stevenson, drummer and songwriter for two of punk rock's most enduring and respected acts, Descendents and All, is 38 years old. He's been at it for two decades, ever since Descendents all but invented pop-punk by tempering fledgling hardcore's rudimentary fury with melody and disaffected wit. Every fast 'n' catchy band to rise from the American underground, up to and including today's snotty million-sellers, is indebted to some degree to Stevenson and his cohorts.
But you'll never catch him saying that.
"People will ask you, "How does it feel with such-and-such getting famous on your sound,'" he confirms. "And I'm thinking, "OK, it kinda sounds a little bit like us, but not really.' It's got that punk rock beat to it, but that really doesn't have much to do with the personality of Descendents or All."
That personality was at least as responsible as Descendents' speed, hooks and occasional schizo-jazz freakouts for endearing the band to its fans. They were losers, social outcasts with hearts and a sense of humor, and that's what they wrote about. Punk's misfit origins are about as far removed from the extreme-sports camaraderie currently marketed to the hip kids as it's possible to be. Stevenson notes this without malice, but with a certain defiant pride.
"There's this whole social element that they have (now) that we didn't. Ours is for the acne-faced kid who sits in his room and picks his nose," he says, "and theirs is for the world of cool skaters and surfers. It's totally different."
In fact, he half-seriously credits his solitary adolescence with helping to develop the punk-pop sound.
"Super poppy melodies on the bass at high speed — when you're 15 and you don't have any girls coming over, that's what you do," explains Stevenson, "sit around and play bass all day."
Most punk pundits know that All is basically Descendents with a different singer. Around 1987, frontman Milo Aukerman headed off to get his doctorate in biochemistry; refusing to continue as Descendents with a different singer (and because Aukerman never really quit, per se), Stevenson, guitarist Stephen Egerton and bassist Karl Alverez co-opted the title of their last full-length, soldiering on as All. Ironically, All went through two other vocalists before finding stability with Chad Price.
While many artists take great pains to differentiate their various projects, All went out of their way to stress that the change was about keeping the ball rolling — by no means a stylistic shift. Price's voice might be completely unlike Aukerman's — fuller, bolder, more confrontational — but the vast majority of the new lineup's alternately hooky and quirky fare is recognizable under any name.
"It would be pretentious to make it sound intentionally different. We don't try to make it the same, it's just whatever it is," Stevenson says. "We just make music, and the idea is that we have two bands as a functional endeavor, rather than being creatively distinctive."
Nearly 14 years later, All's discography and uninterrupted lifespan greatly surpass that of Descendents. Still, Stevenson admits to a certain amount of living in the shadow of their previous incarnation, a status not exactly clarified by Descendents' acclaimed 1996 reunion disc (Everything Sucks) and tour with Aukerman. But All seems to have made peace, however uneasy, with their legacy. Their latest release, an excellent in-concert document titled Live Plus One, comes with an entire Descendents set on a bonus full-length CD. By dint of both their pedigree and still-virile knack for iconoclastic, catchy tuneage, the band has managed to carve their own niche somewhere between the old guard and the new trends.
As one of the guys who started it all (not to mention his stints with old-school hardcore legends Black Flag), Stevenson spends an inordinate amount of interview time declining open invitations to slam the big-shorts set. While he's fully aware of his contributions to the scene, the veteran considers his bands and the current Warped scene to be apples and oranges. Intelligent, talkative and justifiably confident of his own talents, Stevenson's just not that interested in whining about the outsized success of, say, Blink-182.
"They're good guys, they've been real cool to us," he says. "(The press) wouldn't be able to get us to bash them. But yeah, usually people will try.
"We actually fell victim to that a little bit in the early 1990s. You learn by doing it one time — then you go, "wow, that makes me sound like a bitter old fucker.'"
So is Stevenson a bitter old fucker?
"No, I'm not. Maybe for about two or three months I was," he says with a laugh. "I do remember one morning, my radio alarm going off and I heard what was basically a rewrite of (Descendents') "Silly Girl" … I felt like "Fuck, that's really weird, why isn't my song on the radio?' But I got over it."
He's got too many irons in the fire to sit around and bitch. Stevenson and guitarist Egerton are perhaps the most sought-after production team in underground rock, and their Fort Collins, Colo., studio, The Blasting Room, tracks full-time with or without them. Start the Press, the printing company founded by All for their own merchandising needs, now takes on numerous outside orders. And their 3-year-old label, Owned & Operated, has also become a growing concern: All's current trek, The Motor Memory Tour, is a showcase for the imprint, featuring O&O bands Armstrong (featuring former Hagfish members), Wretch Like Me, and Someday I.
"We've got these other things that are related to music, but don't involve me crawling out of a van and playing some bar somewhere when I'm 50," Stevenson deadpans.
It's not that he's ready to give up the touring life just yet, but he realizes the irony of his situation. While some musical cultures deify their pioneers and afford them careers that can last well into their later years, punk rock is largely a young man's game, both in terms of the audience and the toll it takes on the players.
"There are other genres of music where one's experience is rewarded rather than condemned. I'm 38. In bluegrass I'd be a little punk bitch," he says with a laugh. "They'd want me to practice another 10 years."
Music critic Scott Harrell can be reached at 813-248-8888, ext. 109, or at scott.harrell@weeklyplanet.com.
All w/Armstrong/Someday I/Wretch Like Me
Wed., July 24
State Theatre, St. Petersburg
7:30 p.m., $10
This article appears in Jul 17-23, 2002.
